The McCarthyism in Climate Science

It is sad to observe the increasingly poisoned climate in climate science. Last week, the renowned climate scientist and former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Prof. Lennart Bengtsson, was forced to step down because of incessant threats. He had agreed to become an advisor to a non-alarmist climate think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) three weeks earlier. But he had to resign due to unbearable pressure from some of his “colleagues” in the climate science community. In his resignation letter, Bengtsson wrote

“I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc. I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.”

Regrettably, Bengtsson is by no means the only researcher that has been McCarthy-ed. In a similar fashion, Professor Judith Curry, a climatologist and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Professor Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado Boulder are routinely smeared for their stances. Prof. Curry points out the direct consequences for her:

“So what is the impact on a scientist of the so-called climate McCarthyism? As a result of smearings by [Joe] Romm, [Michael] Mann, et al., I am excluded from serious consideration for administrative positions at universities, offices in professional societies, consideration for awards from professional societies, a number of people won’t collaborate with me, and anyone who wants to invite me to be a keynote speaker has to justify this in light of all the cr*p that shows up if you google ‘Judith Curry’.”

Global warming is real and a problem, but the way that any arguments besides the hyper-alarmist are attacked and branded as heresy is counterproductive and wrong. In the long run the even worse fallout could be an eventual diminished stature of all scientific discussion.

One more example of such an unwillingness to accept more voices in the debate was to be seen only two days after Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF; and sadly, it was once again the Swedish professor who had to experience it firsthand.

A scientific paper that he co-authored, challenging that climate will warm as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts, was declined by the journal Environmental Research Letters partly because it is politically inconvenient. A scientist asked by the journal to assess the paper under the peer review process wrote that he strongly advised against publishing it because it was “less than helpful.” The unnamed scientist concluded: “Actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”

Professor Bengtsson said he accepted that emissions would increase the global average temperature but the key question was how quickly. He added that it was “utterly unacceptable” to advise against publishing a paper on the ground that the findings might be used by climate sceptics to advance their arguments. “It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models. Therefore, if people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system we must have much more solid information.”

Dissent lies in the nature of science. And it violates the fundamental principles of science when scientists say we should not hear certain evidence if it doesn't fit our political conclusions. When researchers mix up their role as a scientist with that of an activist, the reputation of their science will inevitably diminish. Climate science deserves better.

I want us to get a sense of proportion to our worries. That sometime means challenging your biggest concerns, while pointing out that things you may never have heard about are much more important. I also try to get us to focus on the most cost-effective solutions. We can onl...